Doyle issues "call to action" over worship decline

Published: 28 May 2007

Explaining a new archdiocesan policy to boost the percentage of
baptised students at Tasmanian Catholic schools, Hobart Archbishop
Adrian Doyle cites studies showing a low rate of religious literacy
among teenagers.

The Mercury
reports that Archbishop Doyle has issued a "call to action" in response
to data that shows only 10 per cent of Tasmanian Catholics attend mass
each week.

This concern is behind the Archbishop's new policy to
boost the number of baptised students in Tasmanian Catholic Schools to
75 per cent, The Mercury says.

About 60 per cent of the 14,965 students in Tasmania's 37 Catholic schools are Catholic.

In
a speech in late April, Archbishop Doyle set out his plan to promote
the Catholic faith, which targets Catholic students in state schools.

"There are very many Catholic students attending Government schools, for a variety of reasons ..." he said.

"We must all work harder to encourage them into Catholic Education."

Archbishop
Doyle this week confirmed the church was seeking an exemption under the
Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Act to turn away non-Catholic students,
starting with the new high school at Huntingfield.

This has
upset gay activists, who said the exemption could be used to turn away
students who are gay, who question the Catholic doctrine and who have
parents in a de facto relationship.

In his speech, the Archbishop said other states already had the exemption.

"Our
Catholic education system will always give preference to those who are
Catholics and, I must say, even more so to those once called
'practising Catholics'," he said.

Archbishop Doyle said he had heard of parents having their children baptised to secure a spot in a Catholic school.

He
referred to research in Ireland that showed teenagers and young people
had poor religious literacy and a third could not say why Easter was
celebrated. And he said the religious literacy in Tasmania could be
even worse, and the findings were of "great concern".

He also
referred to research in the UK that showed one-third of the adult
population had no contact with any church, apart from baptisms,
weddings and funerals.